Sources of Law Under English, French, Islamic and Iranian Law-a Comparative Review of Legal Techniques

Abstract

Any comparative study involving several legal systems presents special difficulties both n the exposition of actual principles and rules and in the analysis of the underlying concepts. These inherent difficulties are compounded if there are fundamental differences in approach to the noiion and the sources of the lasv and, consequently, to the treatment of legal topics. Out of the four legal systems chosen here for a comparative review, Islamic, French and English law have evolved from completely different origins and developed markedly distincove features. Islamsc and English law have mainly been, and have to a great extent remained, introspective and self-contained, whereas French law has heavily drawn on the revived Roman law as supplemented by medieval customs and modified by liberal ideas and scholarly works through the period of Renaissance going into and after the French Revolution of 1789. Iranian law, by contrast, has been, siIlce the Constituiiorlal Revolution of 1906, a hybrid product of the fusion, and at imes juxtaposition, of Islamic, Shfah, and French law. After the Revolution of 1979 and the consequent change of the regime in Iran into the Islamic Republic, the structural pattern of the law in substantive civil matters has remained almost intact, but the concepiion of and the approach to the law and its sources, as well as the composition and function of the legislature and judiciary, have radically changed. The four main Sunni schools show differences on details but share certain basic common feanares when contrasted with the Twelver Shlzah as the main SluKah school which is the official faith m Iran. At a higher level of abstraction, Shitah and Sunn1 law show, despite their differences as to details or certain methodological principles, a common configuration which makes it possible to refer to Islamic law as an overall system. French and Iranlan law are codified but English law is not, though the technicality of codification in itself is not a determining factor, as the American experience of codification demonstrates. English law, notwithstanding a vast post-World War II legislaiive production, remains basically judge-made and continues to be case-